What is Your Organization’s Theory of Change? What is the Path to Your Goal?

I have had multiple conversations over the last couple of weeks about how to get there from here. Of course, that all depends on where you want to go AND on how you want to get there. The path matters and you need both. Similar to getting anywhere, there are multiple paths. Say you wanted to go to Chicago – you could fly, drive, bike, walk or take the train. What’s the best way forward, for you, your community, program or organization?

In the nonprofit world, your theory of change is the path to your goal. What is the desired goal? What path will get you to it? Strategy is the selected theory of change; it’s the high-level plan to meet a goal. Anne E Casey defines it in their manual, which if you haven’t read I highly recommend: “A theory of change (TOC) outlines how to create that change. It is an essential part of a successful community transformation effort. This manual, created for the Casey Foundation’s Making Connections initiative, defines theory of change using Casey’s impact, influence and leverage platform, and shows community advocates how to create their own TOC by showing the relationships between outcomes, assumptions, strategies and results.”

It’s useful at the community level and also at the organizational or even program level. It really comes down to this: What’s the goal? What strategy will you use to get there? How will you know when you do?

What if you wanted to address high school dropout rates?

You could work at the program level: You could talk to kids who graduated and find out what made them successful. You could talk to kids who dropped out and found out why they dropped out. You could shore up, revise, introduce or improve supportive programs in kindergarten, 3rd grade, 6th. and 8th. You could look at early education programs and their impact on HS success.  You could research wrap- around programs.

You could work at the community level:  You could gather school principals and district executives, youth development leaders, funders, and government officials together and agree to coordinate efforts. You could set a community theory of change, sub goals to get there, and team leaders over the sub-goals to make sure you do.  Each group can coordinate their efforts toward the goal and the funders can align grants to provide incentive.

You could work at the policy level:  You could revise academic curricula to ensure every kid is engaged.  You could address suspension rates. You could address discipline, both the way its meted out and by whom.

You could also work to change the law. We allow students to drop out at 16. We don’t have to do that. Sure, it will create a whole host of other issues if we do, but we can – we have power and choices.

The theory of change model is useful for improving process too.

This morning I was on a coaching call – shout out to you, Ken – and we were talking about increasing individual giving. What can you do you increase individual giving? You could ask (or ask more) people for money. You could assess your current practices.  You could steward your current donors better. You could look for new donors. You could move up the lower level donors you have into middle donors. You could engage the middle donors you have into larger donors. You could prospect for more donors. You could say thank you more or engage people better.  You could engage your Board and your team to create a culture of philanthropy.

Each option is a strategy to get to the goal. What’s the goal? How are you going to get there?

In the nonprofit world, the theory of change is usually implemented via a strategic plan, but it doesn’t have to be.  What is does have to be is agreed to by whomever will be working to move it forward, with sub-goals, strategies for each, metrics so you know you get there, assignments and due dates.  Strategy that can’t be assessed is a wish and as the Heath brothers so eloquently put it “hope is not a strategy.”

Where do you start?  You start wherever you are. Get all the people together who are working towards or are impacted by the issue (yes those impacted too- don’t do for people without people), start mapping, talking, wishing and planning. Social Justice is the concerted effort of a group of people to affect change.

You can spend your days putting out fires. You can spend your days addressing the end result of injustice or you can gather your fellow activists, funders, donors, leaders and fight for justice.

What social justice issue are you trying to address and at what level? Have you had the opportunity to set a strategy to reach a goal? What’s your experience setting theories of change?  As always, I welcome your insight, feedback and experience. Please share your ideas or suggestions for blog topics and consider hitting the follow button to enter your email. A rising tide raises all boats.

Who Trained Your Board?

The sentence I have repeated the most this month is this “your board will be as good as whomever trained them, which was possibly no one.” I’ve said that nine times, thus far, and it’s only the 13^th.

Your Board will only be as good as whomever trained them, which actually may have been no one. The vast majority of Board members I have come across in my 25+ years in this field, including earlier in my career some of my own, have not been formally trained to their role.

Untrained Board members will do what they think is right, which may or may not be aligned with anything anyone else is doing, may or may not be aligned with the strategic plan of the agency and may not, in fact, be right.

Whose fault is that? It’s ours. Executive leaders are responsible for ensuring good Board process. Sure, it’s up to actual Board members to follow that process, but it’s our jobs to make sure it’s there to be followed.

We have a horrible history in this field of following the baptism by fire training model. It’s how I was trained. It’s likely how you were trained. It’s a bad model. Here’s the truth:

If you are frustrated that

• your Board is not doing their job
• they keep overstepping into your job
• you keep having to overstep into their job
• your board president is micromanaging
• your board is not raising money
• your board glazes because they do not understand the financials

It may be because they don’t understand what their job is- BECAUSE NO ONE HAS TRAINED THEM. If you want your board members to know what their job is, it’s your obligation to train them.

Just so we’re crystal clear, when I say trained, I don’t mean give an orientation on your agency (though props to you if you do that). I don’t mean handing new Board members a packet. Let me say once and for all: there is no such thing as training by Board packet. That’s not training. That’s reading. It’s not nothing, but it’s not enough.

I recommend you offer an actual Board training, annually or more often if you can get away with it, that outlines:

• Board Role and Responsibilities
• Duties under the Law
• An overview of the intent of by-laws (called Code of Regulations in Ohio) and the specifics of yours
• Officer Roles and the Executive’s Role
• Committees structure, charts of work, goals and expectations
• Conflicts of Interests
• Board Governance Models
• Basic Rules of Roberts Rules of Order (if that’s the model you follow, and it is for most agencies)
• Meeting Structure
• Governance Modes and Generative Governance Techniques

What do you have here? An opportunity! Float the idea. Ask about what your Board is interested.  What would they like to learn?  Make sure you offer options.

Here are some for your and their consideration:

• Art of the Ask
• Board Process – agendas setting, committees,  strategy, structure, engagement
• Basic Board responsibilities- fiduciary and legal
• Board vs Staff roles
• Best Practices of Effective Boards
• Mission relevant information

In the absence of Board training, executives are sometimes, either by choice or by vacuum, put in the position of fulfilling roles that are not their roles to fill. If you are doing their job, they are not. That also means you are not doing your job. Just because it needs to be done does not mean it needs to be done by you. Train your Board to fulfill their role, and then let them. If they aren’t doing what you want, it may be because you’re doing it. Stop.

It’s almost 2018, and as I mentioned in 8 things to stop doing in 2017, “the work of the Board gets done by committees. If you do not have committees, I encourage you to work to introduce them. Please click over to read Board Work via Board Committees.

In the absence of committees or even in the presence of them, you may still be doing their job. The easiest way to tell if you are is to consider who speaks the most at Board meetings. If it’s you, there’s your answer.

If they don’t do it and you do, you’ll keep doing it. You have to give it back.

How? By saying to each committee chair “I just learned that the Chairs of each committee should be leading the committee meetings and giving the committee reports at Board meetings. Would you be willing to do so? I’m happy to sit with you prior to the meeting and go over the report and help brainstorm the answers to expected questions.” “Oh, you don’t want to or won’t be there?”

Yes I know this is where you step into the breach. Resist.

“Ok, who should we ask to report instead?”

You can set committee chairs up to succeed. You can call and ask them to set a committee meeting. You can even suggest times, date and write the agenda. You can send out the invitations. You can prep them to chair the meeting. You can whisper in their ear during the meeting and even type up the minutes afterward. But you can’t lead the committee meeting or report out on it at the board meeting.

If you have tried and failed to give back the work of the committee to its Chair, you then can go to the Board Chair and/or the other Officers and ask for advice. Like this “Committee X hasn’t been meeting and /or seems to be having a hard time achieving their goals. Would you mind checking in with them and nudging them along?” “Oh, you have and nothing has changed? How would you like to handle that?”

While it is your Board to help develop, it’s not your Board to run or to manage. It’s not your committee and it’s not your meeting. It’s a Board meeting. The Board members should be talking; you should be there to listen, answer questions, present your report, make recommendations and offer support and guidance. You should not be the person in the room talking the most. If you are, they are not. We want them to lead. That may mean you have to let them.

Set your Board members up to succeed and they will help you lead your agency to heights you can’t even imagine today. Your agency will be stronger for it. As an added bonus, you’ll be less frustrated.”

Executives get a lot done by sheer willpower. Strong executives coupled with strong Boards, can lead our agencies to places no leader can get alone. Together, we can be unstoppable and because of the strength of our nonprofits, our communities can be stronger.

How have you trained your Board?  Board members, how were you trained? How has either improved your agency? As always, I welcome your insight, feedback and experience. Please share your ideas or suggestions for blog topics and consider hitting the follow button to enter your email. A rising tide raises all boats

Creating Board Buy-In

I have found myself uttering this statement more than a few times in the last month: “If you include your team- board or staff- in the direction setting process, they will be more willing and likely to execute the strategies needed to accomplish the goal.” The only way to get buy in on a plan is to create it and the only way to create it is to involve people in the process, and then continue to engage them in the execution.

I know dozens of nonprofit CEOs, maybe hundreds. Each and every one of them gets up every day to do what they believe is best for their organization. Yet, they don’t always build the buy-in to accomplish the goals. Then they get frustrated because the board doesn’t participate. Or the board gets frustrated because they believe their time is not being valued or their input is not being sought. Or the staff gets frustrated because they’re being instructed on what to do without being told why, or sometimes how.

Why is this happening so consistently in our sector? Because many of our leaders have been trained on a premise that is inaccurate. The premise is that it is the CEO’s role to set the strategic direction and everyone else will fall in line. That is just not the case. It may be the case in the for profit field and because our field reflects so much of that field it gets very confusing. In the nonprofit field, one of the 5 roles of the Board is to set the Mission, Vision and Strategic Direction of an agency. That is not a role that can be farmed out to the Executive Director.

Here is some evidence of the faulty premise based on actual statements I have heard people say over the last 10 years, paraphrased and possibly softened or hardened over time and repetition. (I could go back further, but why?)

I Don’t Want to Bother Them

“My board is busy.” “My board is powerful” “They don’t have time for this.” All of which may be true. That is probably what attracted them to you and you to them, but they have the job. They have been appointed to govern your agency. This is governance.

I Don’t Trust Them

“This is my agency; it’s my baby.” “They may choose to go a different direction than the direction I want to go.”

One of the hardest pills to swallow for founders and executives who didn’t come up through our field is this one, very large, point: We are professional nonprofit leaders working for a Board that may not be as well versed in nonprofit law, the issue our agency exists to impact or Board process.

That Board has collectively been appointed to govern our agency. They speak with one voice and with that voice can fire us, the agency’s leader, change the agency’s mission and do whole lot of other things, some of which has the potential to be damaging, and not only to us.

It’s why building and training the board is so important. It’s why professional development for you and your team is so valuable. It’s why setting a strategy that everyone has bought into is critical.

Without each, there is the very real potential for chaos.

Why is my Board not more involved?

“Why don’t the committees meet?” “What are they not helping me raise money?” “I don’t have time have to stop what I’m doing to help them do it.” “Shouldn’t they already know this stuff?”

You’ve heard me say it before: You will be subject to whomever trained your board members before they came to you, which may be no one. If you want your Board to speak with one voice, to understand their role and the expectations of that role, to understand your role, and the responsibilities within each, you will have to train them.

Board work is primarily done by committees. Executive Directors support, which sometimes means encourages the Board to adopt, a committee structure. Once they have, you will then have to support them in fulfilling their expanded role AND- this a big and – go back to doing your job and stop doing theirs. (This is much harder that it sounds!) For more information on how to do that, please click here to see the last point in this post.

Creating Board buy in is the difference between a plan that gets written by you in your office or in a room in which everyone is proud to be. It’s the difference between the final product sitting on a shelf or getting executed. It’s the difference between your agency moving forward or spinning in circles. Build the buy-in. Create the plan. Move your mission forward!

What have you done to build Board buy-in? What are some faulty premises that you’ve seen? As always, I welcome your insight, feedback and experience. Please offer your ideas or suggestions for blog topics and consider hitting the follow button to enter your email. A rising tide raises all boats.

Easy Fixes for Vexing Board Problems

Board problems are serious and most require significant planning and development, but a few don’t. In fact, some solutions are so easy they can baked in to every organization’s calendar or process. For the not so easy fixes, I encourage you to read 3 not so easy Steps to Improved Board Engagement. Engagement and process are two sides of a coin, one feeds the other and you need both. For this side of our coin, please consider the following easy fix recommendations:

1. Set a Standard Board Meeting

Standard Board meetings are defined as meetings that are held the same day and time every month. In other words, you are saying “our Board meets on the 4^th Thursday at 4pm or the 10^th of every month at 8am. It allows your Board members to put dates on their calendar in perpetuity, which allows them to schedule things around it and creates one more chance they will attend. Not having a standard Board meeting does exactly the opposite. It’s a roll of the dice as to when you board members will be available. Unfortunately, that’s not even the worst part of it. The worst part is we’re leaving the setting of the board meeting to chance. Maybe the Board Chair will set one. Maybe the Exec will remind them. Maybe there will be a meeting. Maybe your board members will be available. Then again, maybe not.

Board meetings are the ONLY way that governance decisions get made. Set a standard meeting and make sure that the decisions you need to get made do, in fact, get made.

2. List Board members and Officer terms on your Board list

Every agency I know has a current Board list. Every agency I know does not have a current Board member term list. Some do. Many don’t. Do you?

Adding the terms under each Board member’s name on your Board list is the easiest and most consistent way I know to make sure that Board members get re-elected or replaced and that everyone is clear as to when each should happen.

Double that for Officers. Sometimes, our Board Chairs are amazing and everyone wishes they could serve forever. Sometimes, we can’t believe they got elected in the first place and our executives are praying they can keep their positions until the Chair is replaced. Most often, we live in middle.

It is imperative that Officers and individual board members are renewed or replaced as per your by-laws, which in Ohio are called Code of Regulations. Most by-laws list Officer terms as one year terms, renewable once and individual board member’s terms as three years, sometimes renewable once, sometime renewable indefinitely. What do your by-laws say?  Is that what you’re doing?

3. Have and Use an Agenda for Board Meetings

All Board meetings should have an agenda. That agenda should be written by the Board Chair, or written by the Executive and approved by the Board Chair then sent out, in advance, to all board members along with a packet of information that will inform whatever there is to discuss and vote upon. Agendas should include every topic up for discussion and, at a minimum, a vote on last month’s minutes and the most recent financial statement and whatever other business is before the Board.

I recommend any agenda item that will need a vote be in bold. That way everyone is clear what votes will be taken, and what they need to prepare.  The goal is that each board member can make an informed vote.

4. Take Good Minutes

Good minutes include the time the meeting was called to order, each and every vote taken, which Board members are and are not at the meeting, and a list of staff and guests, by name. When you are taking minutes, it is much easier to follow, or write directly on, the agenda so you always know which discussion and which votes align with which agenda item. Minutes should note each item, include a brief summary of the discussion, as necessary, and most importantly, list all votes, including the name of who motioned, who seconded the motion, if the vote was unanimous and if not, who abstained or dissented, also by name. This requires the Chair to ask all three questions. As my co-trainer and Bailey Cavalieri attorney extraordinaire David Martin says “the Board speaks though its minutes.” What are yours saying?

5. Follow the Election Process laid out in your By-laws

I have seen a range of by-laws in my career. Many are good; some are horrible. Even the horrible ones list some type of election process for Board members, which is usually at the Annual Meeting. You should be following whatever that process is, and if your current by-laws are not meeting your needs, please consider Revising your By-laws.

Many agencies elect board members all year long, and if that works for you, cool. It tends to take more time, but that’s okay. If you need new Board members, absolutely add them to your Board as they are identified, vetted and available. Once you have gotten to a reasonable number of Board members, stop. Start adding Board members once a year. It’s easier to make sure they all get oriented, assigned to a committee, and when the time comes, renewed or replaced. It’s also much easier to track.

Double that for Officers. Unless an Officer needs to be replaced mid-year, Officers should be elected or re-elected at the annual meeting.

Finally, don’t forget to renew your current Board members who would like to stay and whom your committee has recommended do stay for another term. (Yes, both.)  Board members, as per the organization’s by-laws, may serve until they are replaced, which only works if that language in in your by-laws.  If it’s not, who you think is a seated board member may not actually be seated board member. Even if that language is included, it’s cleaner and easier to re-elect the Board members you want to continue to serve.  When you don’t, it creates questions:  Did you forget?  Did you want that board member to stay?  Is your Board honoring its responsibility of self- perpetuation?

Each Annual Meeting should include, at a minimum, three slates for consideration: new Board members, renewing Board members and Officers. Alternatively, should you wish, you can vote on each person individually.

By-laws outline how your organization is governed. They are critical to your organization’s success.

Board service is hard, but it shouldn’t be frustrating. As I stated at the beginning, there are a lot of things you can do to improve Board process, and enhance Board Development and with it Board engagement. The above are the easiest places to start.

What easy fixes do you have for vexing board problems? What would add to my list? As always, I welcome your insight, feedback and experience. Please offer your ideas or suggestions for blog topics and consider hitting the follow button to enter your email. A rising tide raises all boats.

 

3 (not so easy) Steps to Improved Board Engagement

The one thing nonprofit leaders have asked me the most about this year is board engagement. (Last year it was fund raising. Go figure.) It’s not enough to build a good board. We also have to engage that board. Great is not a mountain that once you scale it, you’re done. Nothing stays great without commitment. As we all know, there’s always another mountain.

A few years ago I wrote a piece on engaging the board. The information contained within is still true, and today I want to take a deeper dive.

When Boards set expectations, recruit for fit, experience and skill set, provide training to members about their role and then couple that with good board process, a robust committee structure with work assigned as per the agency’s needs and plan to move forward, board members are much more engaged. In the absence of that, the work isn’t aligned so board members sometimes don’t think we need them, know what to do, or understand their role. Here’s a post to illustrate one board member’s experience.

It’s one thing to know what engagement and disengagement look like. It’s another thing to know what to do to get from one to the other.

Step 1 Board Development Committee

The Board President appoints a standing Board Development Committee with a respected committee chair, usually a long standing board member and often the past President. Most by-laws (Code of Regulations in Ohio) have some version of this committee so it is unlikely you will have to revise yours to get this done. That committee may also be called nominating or governance.

If your CEO does not already have one, create a spreadsheet that lists each board member’s individual on-boarding date and prospective renewal date. Ditto for each Officer.

The Board Development Committee follows that schedule: they say “thank you for your service” at the end of the term when a member is not meeting the board’s expectations or asks for another term of service if they are. They honor the term limits for officers and, if you have term limits for board members, they uphold those as well.

Their committee members are always on the lookout for new Board prospects that meet the board’s needs. They know their needs because they have completed a board matrix that mapped the current board and showed opportunities and gaps by which to seek new board members. Board Source has a free matrix which you can download here.

The Board Development committee has a very specific chart of work. Please click here to see that work in detail.

Step 2 – Board Process and the Work of Committees

Good board process is critical for board member engagement. Good board process includes have an agenda for every meeting, and a strong Chair that follows that agenda. It also requires discussing and voting on the right things, which may require a training to ensure people are clear what the right things are. (Spoiler alert: it’s not day to day operations. Each Board member should be trained as to the role of the board.) It also includes votes being taken appropriately and captured in writing.

To see the details of several committees you are likely to have or need and their general charts of work in detail please click here. Your Board should decide the committee’s actual chart of work based on the needs of your organization and its aspirations. Of course that means you have to have discussed and decided upon your aspirations.

Once you do, it may be that you need to plan out the tasks individual board members will do to move the work forward. Each chart of work should be broken down by the assigned committee into assignments, metrics and due dates. Once it is, you can identify the steps to move the work forward. There are great project management tools out there to outline the steps and track the work. I encourage you to find or design one that works for you.

For example, if the Resource Development Committee aspires to increase contributed income, it may not be enough to bring a list of community philanthropists to a meeting and ask people to write their names next to the folks they know. You and your chair may have to lead a discussion as to how and why that is the plan, engage people around the plan, train people to execute the plan and – then and only then- go through the names one by one and set goals, make assignments and set completion dates.

Board meetings are held to accomplish the business of the board and to report out on the work of committees. That’s the price of admission. Yet to build engagement they should also include mission moments and strategic and generative discussions.

Step 3 Strategic and Generative Governance

“It is not enough to have a strategic plan that made your Board members crazy and now sits on a shelf. Strategy is not a one day thing. Strategy requires direction setting, questioning and the committing of resources to ensure the destination is reached. It also requires the rejection of things that are outside the scope of our plan, or the revision of our plan. It necessitates having a culture that allows for and encourages questioning, and sometimes dissent. Board meetings should include robust discussions.”

I want each and every board member to feel privileged to be in the room. I often do an exercise with Board members and ask them to write down on a piece of paper their opinion of board meetings on a scale from 1-4: 1 is I can’t believe I left my office for this. 4 is I feel privileged to be in the room. How would your Board members vote?

“We engage board members initially by talking to them about our organization’s mission, the impact it makes in our communities and our vision for changing our corner of the world. They joined our boards in order to help us do those things – and then we never talked with them ever again about any of it. Ever. Again.

We talk with board members about money, what we spent and why we need more of it; we talk with them about fund raising and why they need to do more of it; we talk with them about the problems we’re having and what we need from them to fix it.

We don’t talk with them nearly enough about what they want, about why they joined our board, and what they hoped to get out of their service.” Not Fund Raising? Not Engaged.

Board members join our boards to help us move forward our missions. We need to spend far more time at board meetings talking about the community issue that created the need for our agency, our values, how those values play out, how we are impacting our clients and what is happening in the world that is challenging our ability to meet our mission. We need to be diving deeper on the issues we care about and looking differently at how we are moving the needle for change.

I’ve said it before “if Boards are just going to approve the things put in front of them, anyone can do that. We don’t need our community’s best and brightest to serve on our Boards for that. We do need our community’s best and brightest to lead, to govern and to be strategic about the needs of our communities and generative about the issues we face.”

Boards that are developed, trained, focused on the right things and governing strategically and generatively are engaged, and engaged boards coupled with amazing leadership move mountains!

What’s been your experience in engaging a board? As always, I welcome your insight, feedback and experience. Please offer your ideas or suggestions for blog topics and consider hitting the follow button to enter your email. A rising tide raises all boats.

Best and Not so Best Practices

I’m putting together a webinar on Board Engagement for DonorPath’s (now Network for Good)  Performance Lab series and one of the fun things we decided to include was a list of best practices and also not so best practices. Best practices are a collection of what is considered to be just that: the best practices in our field.

It is a collection of plans, policies and processes that the leaders in our field consider to be excellent and therefore worthy of inclusion on a list. The list is organized by no one and also by everyone.

There are common components of a well run agency and also excellent processes, plans and policies that have been identified by our well respected leaders, institutions and publications. The Minnesota Council of Nonprofits published The Principles and Practices for Nonprofit Excellence and described it as “the fun­damental values of quality, responsibility and accountability.” It’s very good; you should check it out.

Unlike an actual election, and very similar to minority communities, the leaders in our field are not elected or appointed to speak on our behalf. Even if they were, we still may not agree with them. But since they’re not, we should all be clear that there is no officially sanctioned list of what makes a best practice in our field, or even what body would sanction such a list.

I share that to say what I think is a best practice, may not be what you think is a best practice. I have not been elected to tell you what should or should not be included on such a list. Of course, neither has anyone else.

There is absolutely general consensus in the field of what it takes to build a sustainable, professional and well run nonprofit that meets its mission and moves the needle forward for its community. There is much available on how to build a great board, what skills are needed for nonprofit leadership and what well run agencies do. If you’ve been reading for a while – and if you have, thank you – you know that I am a big fan of the following:

Best Practice Processes:

• Orientation and annual training for all board members
• Annual self evaluation of individual board members that includes questions about board process and an opportunity to request training
• Generative and strategic discussions at every board meeting
• An effective board committee structure
• A trained and talented staff committed to the organization’s mission
• A passionate, experienced and respected executive leader

Best Practice Policies:

• Conflicts of Interest policies to ensure that no one puts their personal goals ahead of the agency’s best interests. (Such policies are also required by law.)
• Confidentiality policies to protect the information with which you are entrusted.
• Crisis Communication policies to determine who speaks for the organization in an emergency.
• Background checks for all staff to ensure you protect your clients and your agency.
• Never alone with a child, two staff in the building at all times and a discussion and policy about what is appropriate contact with kids outside of the program hours and space are critical policies for agencies serving children.
• Gift Acceptance policies outline what your agency accepts and doesn’t accept as a gift and under what terms.
• Term Limits for Officers: It is not good for an agency to have long term officers. New blood and new ideas are needed on the board to continue to move the organization forward.
• Goals and an annual evaluation for the CEO. It is very hard to provide an objective evaluation if goals were not set. By what would you measure performance?

Best Practice Plans:

• Strategic Plans determine where you’re going, how you’re going to get there and how you’ll know once you do.
• Board Development Plans help you build, educate and perpetuate your board.
• Resource Development Plans ensure you can secure the necessary resources to serve your clients and meet your mission.

There are also a few not so best practices that I routinely advocate against.

They are:

• Term Limits for Board Members; I once heard William F. Meehan III, director emeritus form McKinsey & Company (one of our field’s widely respected institutions) at a Stanford Social Innovation Review (ditto) webinar called Better Board Governance refer to term limits as – and I’m paraphrasing here – the wimpy way out. Term limits allow boards to avoid conflict, and depending on what part of the country you operate and the politics of your community, that may feel like a necessary thing. If you have a board that’s willing to address issues and thank people when they’re no longer effective or engaged, you won’t need to say goodbye, even for a year, to effective and engaged board members.
• Give or Get Policies which require individual board members to donate or solicit a minimum amount of money each year. Give or Get policies preclude 100% board giving. I‘ve said it before: any policy that is in conflict with your goal is a bad policy.
• Executive Committees that routinely vote in lieu of the full board. As I mentioned in How Many Board Members Meeting How Often? “Powerful executive committees who have the authority to act in lieu of the full board take the majority vote and make it minority rule. Let me demonstrate: 24 board members with an executive committee of 4 officers and 5 committee chairs need a majority of that group, the executive committee, to make decisions. That means that 5 people, in effect 20% of your board, are making the decisions. If you don’t have committee chairs on the executive committee, and many agencies don’t, you are down to 3 people deciding for the board, just over 10%.” Powerful executive committees disengage non executive board members, who are the majority of board members, which then creates the need for strong executive committees. It’s a self fulfilling and self destructive prophecy. Disengaged board members create disengaged boards which create ineffective agencies.

Board and executive leadership of a nonprofit is not for the faint of heart. It’s tough; it’s lonely and it’s sometimes scary. It requires a lot of things, but it doesn’t require making it up as you go along. There are best practices to embrace and not so best practices to avoid.

What do you have on your list of best and no so best practices? What would you challenge on my list? As always, I welcome your insight, feedback and experience. Please offer your ideas or suggestions for blog topics and consider hitting the follow button to enter your email. A rising tide raises all boats.

Get Rid of Your Give or Get Policy

In case you’re not familiar with them, Give or Get policies require individual board members to donate or solicit a minimum amount of money each year. It’s intended to be a one size fits all way to deal with board giving: Board members can write a check themselves, ask others for it or some combination therein. The idea is that you can engage board members who hate fund raising because they can write a check to cover the minimum gift and you can engage people who may not have disposable income because they can solicit others to cover their gift. It’s a win win, right? Wrong!

Give or Get policies get in the way of good governance. They get in the way of 100% board giving. They get in the way of your ability to steward your board members as donors, or thank them for their gift or ask for a larger gift. They get in the way of building a culture of philanthropy. They’re bad policies.

Any policy that is in conflict with your goal is a bad policy.

Give or Get policies allows for members to just “get” and not give at all, which precludes the possibility of reaching 100% board giving.

Most communities have an expectation of 100% Board giving. That means there is an expectation that every single member of the board of directors has personally financially supported their agency. It matters.

Foundation officers ask if there if 100% board giving at meetings to discuss grant submissions. Major donors ask at solicitation meetings. Sometimes there are forms agencies must complete that ask. The answer has to be yes.

If it’s no, you are inviting the question of why someone else would support an agency that its own leaders don’t support. That is a question you really don’t want to have to answer, because there is no good answer.

That’s not the only reason not to do it. Give or Get policies take what is intended to be a minimum gift and make it “the gift” thus minimizing the amount that could be raised and the potential investment of board members. Having such a policy leaves money on the table. It’s possible that every member of your board has the same capacity, but it’s unlikely.

Minimum gifts invariably become maximum gifts by anyone other than the Chair, and sometimes them too. Such policies also works as a disincentive for potential board members who can’t give at the minimum level and limit the gift amount for seated board members that can.

Finally, such policies eliminate the agency’s ability to steward their board members. Board members should each be asked by the appropriate person (defined as the person most likely to get a yes, which is often another board members but may be the executive or a volunteer) for a specific gift that is reflective of their capacity and level of engagement.

Board members should be treated like the donors they are. They should be thanked. They should be appreciated. They should be cultivated, solicited and stewarded. They are not one size fits all and shouldn’t be treated as such.

Some policies don’t stop there. I saw a board member contract the other day that included among its requirements that each board member is expected to “present a check to the agency without having to be asked.” I’m guessing that whoever wrote that policy doesn’t like to ask or be asked for money. I’m guessing that they’re also not satisfied with the amount they receive in contributed income.

Our board members should be our advocates, our ambassadors, our cheerleaders, our leaders, and – yes – our donors. Allow yours to fulfill all their roles and create a plan to ask each one individually for a significant (to them) gift that reflects their capacity and level of engagement. You, your community and your coffers will be glad you did!

What’s your experience with give or get policies? As always, I welcome your insight, feedback and experience. Please share your ideas or suggestions for blog topics and consider hitting the follow button to enter your email. A rising tide raises all boats.

Compliance is not Governance: Financial Statements and Parliamentary Procedure

As a blogger and a regular poster on Linked In and Twitter, it feels as if I’m putting ideas out there yet I’m never really sure if and where they connect to actual people in real agencies trying to better their communities.

Imagine my delight when I received a note that said: “Hi. I work for an association management company. I’m trying to settle a question here in our office. In a blog post about non-profit management you state that all monthly financials reports should be approved with a board vote. What is your basis for this statement? What are your thoughts on the following article – Approving the Treasurers Report Is Not Advised? Thank you for your time.”

Not only was I excited that someone was actually reading my stuff, but that I was being invited to defend my position. Sweet! I was appreciably less excited that doing so put me in the position of challenging an article written by a Parliamentarian.

I encourage you to read the article and come to your own conclusions. My take of it is that the author believes it is misguided for boards to approve financial statements monthly and a larger liability than to not, since the statements have not been independently verified. As such, until they have been independently verified she is recommending they not be approved by the full board.

Now, my goal is not to argue with a parliamentarian, which I clearly am not and which the author clearly is.  My goal is to demonstrate that good parliamentary process does not necessarily lead to good governance.

Robert’s Rules states the “Chair may ask for a Treasurer’s report to be presented” yet no vote be taken. Compliance with Robert’s Rules is not the goal of most boards. Good stewardship is the goal.

I recommend boards approve unaudited financial statements at every board meeting. It is my belief that everyone is quite clear the statements they are approving are unaudited. Boards also annually – if they have an annual audit and many agencies do – approve the actual independent audit.

The author states “I know of no federal, state, local or parliamentary rule that states the treasurer’s report is to be adopted.” Me neither. Yet rules and laws regarding board approval of statements would not be where the train goes off the track. Theft, misappropriation of funds and co-mingling are where the train goes off the track and where the board reviewing and approving fund expenditures might be the first step in ensuring against such eventualities.

Robert’s Rules is a parliamentary process by which to run a meeting, not an agency. In fact, Roberts Rules of Order newly revised in brief specifically defines parliamentary authority as “the book of rules the group names to govern its meeting procedures.” It is not and has never been intended to be a process by which to govern an organization. Compliance is not governance. For more information on governance, I encourage you to read  Generative Governance and The Role of the Board.

Being an engaged board member requires being a good steward of both the organization and the community’s resources including acting, along with other members, as the fiduciary responsible agent. That responsibility cannot be handed off to a Treasurer and you wouldn’t want it to be.

The author states “The treasurer is an office in which a group places a great deal of trust and therefore it seems that an assembly would believe their reports are accurate.” To that, I respond with a resounding “maybe”.

There are as many people serving as treasurers in nonprofits in this country who have no financial training or education as there are those that do. It would be irresponsible and naive to think the community and the law will not hold the entire board accountable in the case of financial mismanagement. That is why I recommend financial statements be reviewed at every meeting, and also that board members ask questions until they understand and are willing to have their name listed as approving of their contents.

Even in the case when you have a trained CPA as your treasurer, that CPA is not usually the CPA of record and even if they are,  the entire board is still responsible and will still be held accountable.

Being in compliance with Robert’s Rules of Order will not shield board members from collectively running their organization into the ground or from being held individually liable or criminally negligent, and that’s not what it’s designed to do anyway. An audit is critical, but it’s often conducted well after a problem has occurred and an issue can be corrected.

Not approving the financial statement will not protect you. Following Robert’s Rules of Order will not protect you. Paying attention, appropriately stewarding your organization and upholding your responsibilities might.

What’s your position on boards approving unaudited financial statements? As always, I welcome your insight, feedback and experience. Please share your ideas or suggestions for blog topics and consider hitting the follow button to enter your email. A rising tide raises all boats.

Revising your By-laws?

Boards of Directors should review – and consider if they need to revise – their organization’s by-laws (in Ohio called Code of Regulations) on a regular basis.

When was the last time you looked at yours? Go ahead; pull them out. I’ll wait.

You’re back? Good! Let’s begin.

Does your board meet as scheduled? Most by-laws state that boards will meet, at a minimum, quarterly. My understanding is it is fine if you meet more often. It’s not fine if you meet less often. (This would be a good time to remind you that I am not a lawyer.) If you are only meeting quarterly, I encourage you to meet more often. It’s like the nonprofit version of that old commercial- miss a meeting, you miss a lot.

Do you have the right number of board members? Most initial by-laws are written with three members, though three members are rarely enough to appropriately govern an agency. If your by-laws say three members, I encourage you to consider revising them. I like a range.

For more detailed information on the number of board members, the frequency of meetings or the structuring of by-laws, I encourage you to read How Many Board Members Meeting How Often and Creating a New Nonprofit.

I offer a few more questions for your consideration as related to your by-laws:

Are new members added as stated? Do you follow the process to elect officers and re-elect renewing members?

Do you have a process to remove board members?

Do the committees listed reflect the committees you have? Are those the committees you need?

Do you have dissolution and indemnification statements?

Do you have things in there that should be elsewhere? Conflicts of Interest policies usually stand alone. So do Financial Policies.

Which governance model do you follow? Is that in there? Does it need to be?

What title do your by-laws offer to both your executive leader and the president of the board? Are those the titles you use?

Titles have evolved during my career. It used to be that the senior executive was called the executive director and the leader of the board was called the president.

It is my understanding that the YMCA was the first large organization to challenge that notion. The YM, once upon a time, had branch directors who were expected to raise money in their communities but were having trouble getting in to see business leaders. They attributed it to their titles. As such, the Y changed the branch managers’ titles to be executive directors so that they were held in higher regard and could more easily get into higher-level offices. (I do not know if the YM has called their executive leaders President & CEO all along or if they changed their titles accordingly)

Once they made the change, and some other agencies followed suit, it became very difficult for everyone else to figure out who is an executive director, meaning the executive leader of the organization, or who is the executive director, meaning the senior staff of a branch, unit or facility.

Sometimes I can’t tell either. Once, while I was working with a board to help them select their new executive, I couldn’t figure out if an applicant, who had the title executive director, was actually the executive leader of her organization. I had to ask five different questions to figure it out. (She wasn’t, in case you were wondering.)

So what should you call your executive leader? There are still plenty of executive leaders called executive directors. There are, more than ever, especially in larger organizations, executive leaders that are called President & CEO. Up until recently, I never thought it was that big of a deal. It’s the same job, after all.

What changed my mind? A board I served was considering changing the name of our executive leader when we hosted an event in conjunction with three other agencies. Of the four executive leaders in the room, our executive was the only one with the title executive director. When each of the other leaders was introduced as President & CEO and she was introduced as Executive Director, it became very obvious that we need a title change.

If we as nonprofit leaders want to be taken seriously as the “real” leaders that we are, running “real” corporations, like we do, then we are more likely to be granted that respect when we have the same title, or a better title, as the person to whom we are speaking.

Of course once you change your executive leader’s title to be president you then have to change that the President of the Board’s title to be Chair and the Vice President to be Vice Chair.

They’re the same jobs, but as I’ve said before, any process, or in this case title, that is getting in the way of meeting your goal is a bad process. This one, luckily, is easily rectified, especially if you were revising your by-laws anyway.

A final word on by-laws: It is important that you follow your by-laws. Yet, the funny thing about by-laws is that there is no governing body that will be monitoring if you do. Of course, if you have significant quorum issues, those issues will end up reflected in your audit and any violation of the law is likely to end up in court or the newspaper. For the most part, outside of criminal activity, a civil violation or a hit on your audit, boards are on their own. As such it is important that boards police themselves. The easiest way to do that is to follow your by-laws, review them annually and revise them, as needed, which usually comes out to every 3-5 years.

It’s also critical – and much more difficult – to ensure that you are upholding your governance responsibilities; your executive is appropriately leading your organization, which is meeting its mission, providing excellent service and living its values.

All that starts with the board. And the board starts with its by-laws.

What’s been your experience in agencies following their by-laws? Do you have any funny, or appalling, stories to share? As always, I welcome your insight, feedback and experience. Please offer your ideas or suggestions for blog topics and consider hitting the follow button to enter your email. A rising tide raises all boats.

Board Meetings: Privileged to be in the Room

Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR), which if you are not familiar is generally included among the best publications in our field, recently invited me (and others) to the Better Board Governance webinar with the words: “Many—and some leaders believe most—nonprofit boards are ineffective.”

Many boards are ineffective! It’s true, and when SSIR says it, it gives each of us permission to say it, and hopefully to fix it. It’s one of my personal and professional goals to make this less of the case.

I work with a lot of boards and my goal is always that each and every board member feels privileged to be in the room. Now that’s a pretty high bar, but board members work hard, for several years, for free. It’s our job to make it worthwhile for them.

“We engaged board members initially by talking to them about our organization’s mission, the impact it makes in our communities and our vision for changing our corner of the world. They joined our boards in order to help us do those things – and then we never talked with them ever again about any of it. Ever. Again.

We talk with board members about money, what we spent and why we need more of it; we talk with them about fund raising and why they need to do more of it; we talk with them about the problems we’re having and what we need from them to fix it.

We don’t talk with them nearly enough about what they want, about why they joined our board, and what they hoped to get out of their service.” Not Fund Raising? Not Engaged.

Board members join our boards to help us move forward our missions. We need to spend far more time at board meetings talking about our missions, our clients and how our programs are impacting their lives.

That, of course, means we have to spend less time talking about other things. Or we need to have longer meetings. I’m not opposed to longer meetings. I believe that we each need to put in the time it takes to get the job done. That said, there are a few ways to ways to make sure the things discussed at meetings should be discussed at meetings. Here’s a few ways to make that happen:

The first, easiest and most effective way to have shorter meetings is to have a robust committee structure. Most of the work of the board gets done in committee. Committees make recommendations to the full board, as necessary. Outside of such recommendations, which other than the finance committee should be periodic and not monthly, committees fulfill their chart of work, which is usually outlined in the by-laws and aligned with the appropriate goal in the strategic plan. For more information about committees, please see Board Work via Board Committees.

Board meetings cannot be allowed to become committee meetings. If they are tottering in that direction, the chair needs to send the issue back to committee and invite interested board members to attend the next committee meeting.

Consent agendas are another great way to reduce time spent on some things to allow time for other things, but ONLY – and I really mean only – if your board is reading the things they are voting upon. “When you consider if a consent agenda is right for your board, consider the board members who most often attend. Do they typically read materials in advance or in the room? If they read them in advance, consent agendas can allow more time for robust generative discussions. If they read them in the room, they may not have time to read all the materials and may be voting on things about which they are not entirely clear. If that is the case, consent agendas can create issues of liability for your agency.” Decision are Made by Those who Show Up

The idea is that a consent agenda includes items that the board should see but doesn’t need to discuss; it is expected to be approved in full, but it doesn’t have to be. Any board member can question any item included in the consent agenda, which will then open up the item for discussion. Consent agendas can include the minutes from the past meeting, any committee report that does not need a board vote, and any other materials. Financial reports should not be included in the consent agenda but instead should be presented and voted upon at each meeting.

Hopefully, we have redirected enough time, with one or both of the ideas mentioned, to allow you to introduce mission moments, information about things happening in the world that will impact the clients you serve or your organization and generative and strategic discussions. If not, please do consider making your meetings longer. I think your board members will agree that longer, more effective meetings are preferable to shorter, less effective meetings.

It would be great if you could start meetings by talking about the mission, introduce ideas about strategy in the middle and end with generative conversations. Remember, generative conversation don’t always have answers. “To be or not to be” was probably the first generative question to be posed. Just because there are no answers doesn’t mean it won’t be a fascinating discussion.

Here are some questions to get you started:

Is offering this program the best way to meet our mission?

Should philanthropists only give to the cause they believe in or should they address the largest needs in our community? What, if anything, is their obligation?

What is the government’s role in addressing poverty? What is the community’s role?

Since I started with SSIR, I’ll end with our other venerable institution, the Chronicle of Philanthropy, which last week in their generative article “Foundations Must Rethink Their Ideas of Strategic Giving and Accountability” asked the questions:

“What are our responsibilities as institutions with a growing public role?

How can we add clarity and context to transparency?

What is our real responsibility for showing Impact? How much can or should we control?

How can we improve our working relationship with citizens and demonstrate respect?”

What are some generative conversations you’ve had? What’s been your experience in moving toward generative governance? As always, I welcome your insight, feedback and experience. Please share your ideas or suggestions for blog topics and consider hitting the follow button to enter your email. A rising tide raises all boats.